The invention relates to a positioning device for use in a tire building system and a method for positioning a bead.
In the process of tire manufacturing, individual beads are to be supplied to an apparatus for forming a tire bead assembly. Such a tire bead assembly comprises a bead with a surrounding bead filler. Such an apparatus for forming a tire bead assembly is for example disclosed in US Patent Application 2012/0024480 A1.
Usually a plurality of beads is arranged on a bead supply unit. For supplying individual beads to the apparatus for forming the tire bead assembly, a single bead is removed from the bead supply unit and is delivered one by one to the apparatus for forming the tire bead assembly by a suitable conveyance means.
The US Patent Application 2012/0024480 discloses a suitable conveyance means comprising a transport unit which is movable along a rail, which transport unit comprises two support members. The two support members are arranged to be horizontally at a distance to each other. When a bead is arranged on said support member, the inner circumference of the bead rests at two positions on the support members, as schematically shown in FIG. 1 of the US Patent Application 2012/0024480.
The beads are engaged and conveyed one by one from the supply unit by the conveyance means and supplied by the conveyance means to a rotary support body of the apparatus for forming a tire bead assembly.
A disadvantage of the known transport unit is that the conveyance means can only move back to the supply unit for engaging the subsequent bead, after the previous bead is supplied to the rotary support body. The known transport unit has a relatively long cycle time, which in case of a high speed apparatus for forming a tire bead assembly may dominate the cycle time of the manufacturing of the tire bead assembly.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a transport unit with a reduced cycle time.